“Do I make you nervous, Max?”
Nervous, nah. Terrified. Bud Traynor made her blood run cold, like broken bits of ice freezing her brain and her limbs. She’d known him two months—as long as she’d known Witt—and it seemed like forever. Bud Traynor. The first murder victim’s father. Father, manipulator, master, molester, and tormentor.
He climbed from his sleek white Cadillac, and she still couldn’t say a word.
She’d vowed to avenge his daughter’s death. Though Traynor hadn’t wielded the weapon, his machinations led directly to her murder. With his blessing, Max believed deep in her bones. She’d vowed to kill this man for his crimes. She’d failed miserably. He made her weak in the knees, weak in body and soul.
He bent to retrieve her damaged lunch, opening the brown bag to peer inside. “Oh, look at that, Max. Your fruit is bruised and your yogurt sprang a leak.” He raised his eyes to look at her. “Looks like I’ll have to buy you lunch instead.”
He was close. She could smell him, expensive cologne, starched shirt, and evil. Evil had its own unique scent, like rotting apples, like fine wine turning to vinegar, like cheese marbled with mold. Evil, the scent of good things gone bad.
The narrow, tree-lined street suddenly seemed empty, the breeze kicking up the fall leaves, crackling as they skidded across the road. Where were the cars, the children going to school, the mothers pushing baby carriages to the park? The place had never been so forlorn.
“Cat got your tongue, Max?”
She had to say something. Anything. “Why do I always feel like we’ve just played a game of chess and it ended in a stalemate?”
“I always win, Max. In everything I do.”
She took her brown bag lunch from his fingers, held her keys firmly in her hand, and snapped her purse closed. He didn’t step back, neither would she. “Depends on your definition of winning.”
He smiled. It reminded her of the turn of lips they’d stuck on her uncle when they laid him in his coffin. Empty. Soulless. Unreal.
“My definition? With you in particular, Max, it will be the day you say you love me. And mean it.”
She laughed, not with mirth, but with incredulity. “You have big dreams, Bud.”
“I do. You figure in them greatly, Max.”
“Then they’re delusional.” She tipped her head, looked him over from foot to head. “You’re old enough to be my father.”
That smile again, never touching the blackness of his eyes. “I know. I especially like it that way. It reminds me so much of my darling daughter Wendy. You remember Wendy, don’t you, Max?”
Wendy, his murdered daughter. Max resisted the shudder his tone elicited and didn’t take the bait. “Why are you here? Today, I mean. Why now?”
He crossed his arms over his green cardigan. Beneath it, he wore a white turtleneck, his slacks a gray check. Bud Traynor was a handsome man despite his sixty-odd years; white hair perfectly in place, gleaming smile, ruddy cheeks, muscular arms and chest. If his teeth were rotted, warts covered his nose, and hair sprouted from his back, everyone would have seen the evil in him. Beauty covers so many sins because most people never look below the surface.
“Why am I here, Max?” He opened his mouth to say more.
Max cut him off. “Spare me the dissertation. I don’t really care why. I’m late for work.”
“Lance La Russa.” His head turned a fraction to the left. He was pleased with himself.
“Who’s Lance La Russa?” Until she knew what he wanted, she’d admit nothing.
“So many of my friends and family are dying, Max.” She hated the way he did that, added her name to almost every sentence as if it somehow increased his hold on her. “And with every death in the past two months,” he paused, letting the words sink in, “you’ve been there.”
Father of Wendy Gregory, lover and client of Tiffany Lloyd, godfather of Bethany Spring. Like Witt, Max didn’t believe in coincidence. Though she’d been able to prove nothing, she knew Bud Traynor had somehow had a hand in their murders.
She raised a brow, feigning unconcern. “Are you a friend of this Lance La Russa?”
“Business associate. I was his lawyer.”
“Ah, you mean you stole his money.”
He belly-laughed for effect. “You do so amuse me. That’s why I want you, Max. No one else talks back the way you do.”
“That’s because you’ve beaten them into submission.”
“My mistake, Max. Playing the game is so much more interesting with a challenge such as you present. You’ve taught me that much, in your own way. Let me teach you some things, too.”
Hating the way he turned everything into the sexual, she steered him back. “So your client’s dead, why come to me?”